The resignations of Silvio Berlusconi right and George Papandreou (left) are seen by some as a political coup

The initiative, which brought together
Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Ulster Unionist MPs, promises to step up
the pressure on David Cameron to fight for Britain's interests if
eurozone nations redraw Brussels treaties to create greater central
control of EU economies.

BERLUSCONI'S BILLIONS AT RISK

Under pressure Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi could be gone by the weekend after advisers told him the fragile financial markets risked exposing his billion pound fortune.

The 75-year-old media tycoon, one of the richest men in the world and valued at £3 billion, agreed to resign earlier this week after a vote in parliament showed he no longer had a working majority.

He said he would step down only after financial reforms he had planned were introduced - a move which threatened dragging on his term as prime minister and which was also seen as a possible attempt to even stay in power.

Markets panicked and share values plummeted across the world - with Berlusconi's own Mediaset empire dropping 12 per cent and at one point even being suspended from trading on the Milan stock market.

Italian president Giorgio Napolitano tried to calm international financial fears and stress that Berlusconi would step down and the reforms would be passed much quicker than the initially expected six weeks.

Now over the weekend - and in record time - the Italian parliament is expected to approve the reforms, with Berlusconi resigning by Sunday or at the very latest Monday, with a technical government appointed led by former EU commissioner Mario Monti.

Initially Berlusconi had been against the idea and had preferred early elections but his close friend and business partner Fedele Confalonieri is said to have told him: 'Mediaset is collapsing, we have lost 12 per cent.

'You have to accept a Monti government or else you will leave nothing to your children,'.Berlusconi is also reported to have said that he did not want to be in power if Italy defaulted on its loans.

Today professor Raffaele Marchetti, a politics lecturer at Rome's Luiss University, said: 'The threat of losing part of his fortune was for certain, a motive for Berlusconi to change his mind with regards to a technical government he is after all a businessman at heart.'

by Nick Pisa, in Rome

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has advocated a two-speed Europe in which eurozone countries accelerate and deepen integration while an expanding group outside the currency bloc stays more loosely connected.

EU sources said German and French officials have discussed plans for a radical overhaul of the EU that would involve setting up a smaller eurozone – a signal that they might kick members out of the euro.

That idea was widely dismissed yesterday, with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso saying: 'The idea that we have two unions in Europe means disunion.

'There cannot be peace and prosperity in the North or in the West of Europe if there is no peace and prosperity in the South or in the East.'

But Eurosceptics are concerned by the grandstanding behaviour of a group of EU powerbrokers called the Frankfurt Group.

They are named after the city where German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy met to carve up the future of the euro by insisting that Italian and Greek leaders Silvio Berlusconi and George Papandreou stand aside in favour of unelected national unity governments – actions seen as close to a political coup.

The other members of the cabal include Mr Barroso, outgoing European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet, his replacement Mario Draghi, International Monetary Fund boss Christine Lagarde, EU economic commissioner Olli Rehn, plus Jean-Claude Juncker – the head of the eurozone group – and EU president Herman Van Rompuy.

Mrs Merkel is pushing for a new EU treaty to enshrine German power over the budgets and taxation in other eurozone countries.

Tory MP Andrea Leadsom and Labour's Thomas Docherty were elected co-chairmen of the all-party group, and said the UK should use that as a chance to grab back powers.

Mrs Leadsom said last night: 'This is the clearest possible evidence that a strong appetite for fundamental restructuring of the UK's relationship with the EU is shared by Parliamentarians from across the political spectrum.

'It was striking how representatives of such a wide range of opinions agree broadly with the principle that social and employment law should be decided at the national, rather than the European level.'

Protest: Athens has been consumed by protests as Greece's economic crisis continues to deepen

Violence: Lines of police officers block the entrance to the parliament building in Syntagma Square, Athens

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Germany denies plotting with France to break up EU to create 'two-speed Europe'